Cardinal Sin

Hidden

"Well... this should be interesting." I murmured, staring at the multiple four foot stacks of documents, papers, receipts, newspapers and pretty much every other thing that could be physically printed onto paper that swamped the desk of the second victim's study. We had called in forensic reinforcements to help search the house for the killer's second 'business card', hoping to speed up the process of sifting through the twelve metric tons of paperwork in the house of the would be hoarder, and second victim, Miss Abigail Gates. But I knew that the job would still take an eternity. I rolled up the sleeves of my pale blue button up blouse and selected a stack of papers, pulling my shoulder length black hair up into a ponytail before settling into the task. 

Half a stack of bank statements later there was a light tap at the already open door. "Gooooood afternoon." A familiarly cheerful voice followed.

"Hey Nate." I replied, not looking up.

"You really drew the short straw with this one, I think there's at least three times more crap in this room than all the others put together."

"I know, that's why I chose it."

"Why, are you hunting for dust bunnies or something? You know they're not actual rabbits right."

"Yes Nathan, I am hunting for rabbits made out of dead skin," I turned to face him with a look of mock sadness and sighed. "I went to the pet shop first, but they had all sold out."

He chuckled lightly and attempted to make his way into the room, in the process knocking over several newspaper towers and kicking a hidden frying pan. I snorted.

"Not very sympathetic are you, who leaves a frying pan under a load of paper anyway?" he complained, clutching the injured foot in one hand and the offending pan in the other.

"I save my sympathies for the dead, not the people dumb enough to waltz into a room covered in rubbish and not look where they're putting their feet." I said, returning to my search.

"Someone needs a spoonful of sugar." Nathan said, shuffling the last few feet into the room and picking up some rogue papers to form a small clearing to sit in. "So, why did you actually choose the proverbial 'needle in a haystack' room?"

I sighed at how ridiculously accurate that name was for it.

"Because this is exactly where I would've hidden it." I said piling more paper into the already overflowing 'sorted' box beside me. "The cards are the only evidence other than the bodies that he leaves, the first one was easy to find. A test to see if we actually could. The second one is going to be nowhere near as obvious, hence this being the room." I looked around in disgust at the sheer volume of paper that I still had to sift through.

"Well I wish you the best of luck Moreno." Nathan stood and brought a handful of sorted papers over to my box, tapping them on another stack to straighten the edges before placing them in and stooping to pick up the frying pan from the floor. He maneuvered his way over and around the document monuments back towards the door. I ripped my eyes away from my work to watch the strange lumbering ballet 

"Where the hell are you going?" I grumbled.

"Well Sofia I'm not technically supposed to be here, Mick sent me out to get some coffee that doesn't taste like shit. There are some promising developments with the unsolved murders and we need caffeine that doesn't taste like it came out the back end of some unmentionable hell-beast."

I nodded, already well acquainted with the quality of the coffee that was available back at the office. 

"And I should have been back..." he lifted the sleeve of his shirt to glance at his old wrist watch "about twenty minutes ago. Despite popular belief I do actually have work to do. I'll see you later." He smiled apologetically and left the room, swinging the frying pan over his shoulder as he went. Probably to return it to the kitchen where it belonged.

___________________________________________________________________

This was it, I had finally reached the edge of insanity. I sat wide eyed, staring at yet another meaningless piece of paper. It was never-ending, pointless. My eyes began to droop; a quick glance at the clock told me it was just past 3am. But I was starting to question if time had any meaning at all. My head fell forwards, snapped back up. Fell forwards.

I was awoken by the sound of gently rustling paper. My head was surrounded by unfamiliar scent that was a heavenly combination of citrus fruits and pine needles. Soft fabric was pressed against my face. The clock read 4:57 am.

A figure faced away from me, its body shielding my eyes from the dewy glow of a desk lamp.

"You snore." It stated.

I lifted my head groggily from the makeshift pillow to find that I'd been sleeping on a neatly folded suit jacket. Aldrik sat a metre or so in front of me, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to the elbows as he bent over a box of paperwork. I raised an eyebrow as it fully dawned on me that the seemingly insensitive and arrogant man had actually made me a pillow out of his own jacket and continued to work quietly whilst I slept.

"I do not." I grumbled.

"How would you know if you did or didn't?" His reply was quiet, as though his mind was in other places.

"I suppose I wouldn't." I stretched my stiff muscles and yawned, the aches in my body reminding me that there were much better places to sleep than the floor. "Why are you in here?" I asked.

"I had finished my assessment of the other rooms."

"Ok well, yeah there's plenty to do in here but, I already went through those boxes." I said, watching as he tore the lid off of yet another evidence box that I had so carefully packed. He tossed it to the side and began rifling through its contents, if he had heard me, it was obvious that he didn't care.

I sighed, too tired to argue. Standing quietly I retrieved his charcoal grey jacket from the floor and walked over, dropping beside him.

"Thanks." I said.

A momentary pause in his rifling was the only indication that he'd heard me. He continued with a slight nod and I stretched again, coffee seemed like a good plan. I turned to walk forwards and went straight into a tall pile of boxes.

"Shit." I muttered, hastily managing to grab the top one that threatened to fall, narrowly avoiding a complete disaster. 

I heard a sigh and the lighter thud of a small pile of papers being thrown back down into a box behind me. 

"This isn't right..." he said.

"Sorry, I didn't expect the boxes to be- "

"Shh. Not that, this, none of this is right." I turned just in time to see him stand abruptly and march towards me, I took an unconscious step back from his aggressive approach and he grabbed me before I fell right back into the boxes.

"What have you found in this room?" He demanded. 

I stammered a little in the intensity of his questioning, in which his face had now unexpectedly appeared only inches from mine.

"What? Nothing that shouldn't be here, papers receipts, um, there's an extensive excel document on the finances of London Zoo over there." I babbled, my sleep muddled mind struggling to think of something that might be useful, or at the very least mildly interesting.

He stared at me in silence, seeming to look right into my eyes and straight through them at the same time. I could almost see the thoughts ticking through his brain like a sorting machine, each one dismissed the instant it came into existence.

"You found nothing." He said.

I shook my head, his grip on my arms loosened and his eyes drifted away from me.

"Well, apart from the frying pan."

They shot back.

"What?"

"Earlier today, Nathan came by and he kicked a big metal frying pan that was hidden beneath the papers, he took it back to the kitchen I think."

My shoulders were instantly released and he was gone almost faster than I could blink. A loud clang from the direction of the kitchen shook me from my dazed stupor. Only half awake I ran towards it, without a single clue as to what I would find when I got there.